Cards comfort Milpitas hospice patients

by Aliyah Mohammed, Milpitas Post

Posted:
12/12/2013 03:33:25 PM PST

Updated:
12/16/2013 10:20:40 AM PST

In order to bring some comfort to people who may be experiencing their last holiday season, Milpitas-based Vitas Innovative Hospice Care launched a Caring Cards project so holiday cards made by local students could reach its 600 patients in the San Francisco Bay Area.

This is the first year that Vitas Hospice has hosted the project, asking local teachers and schools to design and create festive holiday cards with their classes for the patients and their families. The support has been overwhelming, said Marisa Boegel, a Milpitas hospice social worker who spearheaded the project.

"I think we have twice as many cards as we do patients right now," Boegel said. "I just asked the people I know who are teachers if they have kids who want to help bring joy to others during the holiday season, we want to connect kids in our communities to the people in the hospitalÉ and bring some joy to people who might be on their last holiday season."

Elementary schools across the Bay Area decided to become involved, as did students at the Morgan Autism Center in San Jose.

"Since I now work in hospices there are families in dire need and I know how hard it can be for the families of the sick and dying and now we can bring a little joy and involve other people in the community," Boegel said.

Teachers at the Morgan Autism Center were eager to have their students join the project and make cards to spread holiday cheer, which may seem like a simple task, but is difficult for many of the students at the center.

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Shaila Prabhu, one of the teachers at the center who participated in the project, said she wanted to help spread some good cheer, and get the students in the habit of giving instead of receiving.

"We basically put it forward like an art idea. We do art three days a week; this would be a nice substitute. We normally make things for the families that the students get to share. We told them these cards were for people who are not well," Prabhu said. "Some of the kids got it; for some it was just another project they were doing. We are getting them in the practice of doing something nice for someone else."

The teachers made cards with the students, modeling how to use colors and stickers to decorate the paper, and then the children use their own imagination to design their card.

"This was a very nice idea to put together cards for someone, to share the holiday spirit and let people know they are being thought of," Prabhu said. "We really did like making it and putting it together. We don't know ultimately who is receiving our card, but at least knowing it goes to help brighten someone's day really helps."

Arlett Carillo, another teacher from the center involved in the project, echoed Prabhu's sentiments about wanting the students to think beyond themselves, and added that this was a great opportunity for the community to get a sense of the students at the center and for the students to give something back.

A moment that stood out for Carillo during the project was when a student who normally "wouldn't say much, actually wrote all on his own 'happy holidays,' on his card and that is rare, so we got some spontaneous self-involvement which was great."

Once all the cards are collected from the schools, a regional coordinator will distribute the cards in their area, and the extras will be sent to people who lost someone within approximately the last year, Boegel said.

"A lot of people forget how isolated people who are grieving are," she said.

Boegel is excited to see the reactions of people when they receive their cards, "knowing that someone else is thinking of them and that they took the time to draw and put stickers in and thought what they wanted to say to them.

"I am also excited to see where the project goes and how it grows; it might progress to having kids make us birthday cards, a way to get people to understand what a hospice is. We don't teach kids enough about dying and that you can still bring joy to those people."

Contact Aliyah Mohammed at amohammed@themilpitaspost.com or 408-262-2454. Visit us on our social media sites at facebook.com/milpitaspost and twitter.com/milpitaspost.